Income tax department to get money seized from Abhishek Verma

New Delhi, July 17 (IANS) A city court Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to give the money seized from Abhishek Verma - accused of leaking classified documents from the Directorate of Naval Operations - to the income tax department. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjeev Jain dismissed Verma’s plea of releasing Rs.399,000 which was seized by the CBI at the time of his arrest in 2006. Verma is the key accused in what has come to be known as the naval war room leak case.

The income tax department opposed Verma’s plea of releasing the money and stated that apart from what he wanted back, he still owned a huge amount.

The court directed the CBI to release the money to the IT department within 30 days from Thursday.

Verma was jailed in July 2006. He was bailed out by the Delhi High Court in May this year.

According to the first information report (FIR) filed under the Official Secrets Act, Verma along with his associates Kulbhushan Parashar and Ravi Shankaran, in connivance with naval staff, allegedly hatched a conspiracy to steal classified defence documents from the naval headquarters.